Oprah has announced her new favorite gadget for this holiday season and it is...the Kindle.

Bravo Amazon! If anyone in the world can kick start the acceptance of an electronic ebook device in the mainstream who better than Oprah? Oprah has probably done more good for publishers than any person living or dead with her Book of the Month Club.

I broke down and bought my Kindle about a month ago. I planning on waiting for v2, but then just couldn't wait any longer. I love it.

Now, I find this interesting. For years us publishing and software folk have said that the ebook early adopters would be textbook users  and technology readers. Those folks needing textbooks or using technology books would be the early adopters. But we got it WRONG. Just take a look at what books are currently selling on the Kindle. The big bestllers are fiction and non-fiction, but dominated by series fiction. You know, books bought by middle America. The Twilight Saga alone holds the #2, #4, #5 and #6 spots. I know these customers from my days of bookselling--they devour books like candy. These are the early adopters of the Kindle.

And me. I love my Kindle. I love it every Sunday morning when I download my NY Times for $.75 instead of hauling myself to the store and paying $5. I love it when reading that NYTimes and I see a good byline I can just search for the title in the Kindle store and order a sample.

There are a few negatives--the lack of quality in illustrations, screenshots and the use of tables. They have to fix this in order for technology or illustration works to make sense in the format. Right now I'm reading the Snowball and I've been disappointed in the grainy quality of the photographs, but not enough to turn me completely off.

I often wonder now if I would have done better in high school if I had been in more of a Montessori type environment where I could have pursued my own interests. I was an okay student, but I had a problem focusing on what my teachers wanted and spent a lot of time being bored. It wasn't that I didn't like to learn, I did, it just didn't always match up with what the rest of the class was doing at the time. But while I wasn't paying attention in Algebra, I would do things like spend a few weeks reading my big brother's college chemistry book on my own.  And thanks to that Algebra teacher, I had to repeat a semester because of the D she gave me. Guess what, it turns out I missed one major concept at the beginning of the class, so I spent the "repeat" class ignoring the instructor and just doing my homework in class and got an A.

But for every teacher like my Algebra teacher who told my mother she needed to take away my music and t.v., there was another teacher or administrator who would encourage me. I was nominated to compete for my high school in an academic decathlon. I took a bronze in biology and was introduced to one of my favorite authors--Thomas Hardy. I also participated in an experimental class where we were allowed to work on any project we wanted. In the class we read a variety of books including philosophy and then spent class time discussing them. I also spent a good amount of time during that class learning on my own about the beginning of the twentieth century--literature, art and history, something that interested me. Mostly, though, I floated through high school because I was a good test-taker.

So it was a big shock when I entered college. I may have written some short papers in high school, but I had never written a term paper. I was not ready for college.

It's okay. My story has a happy ending. I quit college for awhile but continued to read a lot. I managed a bookstore and read business books by people like Tom Peters and Andrew Grove which helped me be successful. I also moved from job to job to obtain new skills. After the bookstore I took a job at a payroll company so I could have office experience and became a payroll specialist. This then led to a job at a regional magazine in their accounting department. I also did a stint at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Labor Relations department. Meanwhile I finally went back to school full-time and this time I was ready. I could apply my life and business experiences to whatever class be it American Literature or Organizational Communication as Metaphor. After obtaining my degree in Communications, I quickly landed a job at a small publishing company acquiring how-to books on technology. A few years later and I have a plum job at Microsoft.

All this is a preamble to talk about an important book I just finished...The Global Achievement Gap: Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--and What We Can Do About It by Tony Wagner. I graduated high school almost twenty-five years ago, and it looks like things are no better in our school systems. In fact, with the emphasis on test-taking, they may actually be worse. Wagner gives the seven skills that workers need and our schools are not teaching. They are:

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
2. Collaboration across Networks and Leading by Influence
3. Agility and Adaptability
4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
5. Effective Oral and Written Communication
6. Accessing and Analyzing Information
7. Curiosity and Imagination

In my career now, I focus my job on creating books that help today's information workers gain the skills they need to use our software but I'm also focusing on creating books that focus on many of the skills listed above. Why is that? Because I also recognize these skills listed above as essential. I attend a lot of meetings with scary smart people from around the world and one wouldn't last in my organization missing any of these skills. If we want the next generation of American children to succeed they need to be life-long learners and they need to be able to demonstrate these skills their work-place.

Case in point--I also attended a talk this week with Alice Schroeder, the author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. It was a fascinating talk for a couple of reasons. For one, because Buffett is a life-long learner and embodies the seven skills. The other because of the opportunity to watch group of Microsoft employees attending the talk. The room could have been a a page in a Thomas Friedman column or book on globalization. A major part of the audience were Microsoft workers from emerging markets--India, China and other Asian countries with an occasional European or American thrown in. They sat rapt with attention as the author talked about the journey writing the book. When the Q&A opened up the questions started pouring in almost as fast as she could answer. Who are the experts Warren talks to? (None.) Does Warren believe in Win/Win negotiations? (Yes, but Warren always wins more.)How does Buffett use technology? (Only for the news and to play bridge, he does no computation on a computer.) So many questions and hands up that the moderator had to finally put a stop in order to have time for autographs. It made me wonder how many of these people from the emerging markets wish to become the next Warren Buffet. And I have no doubt that some may just be.

My point being, if we want to continue as Americans to compete, these ARE the skills our children will need to learn.

In the meantime, I'll continue to do my part by producing books that help those missed by our educational system. Here are a few titles we've published that can help you gain skills in a few areas listed above.

Seamless Teamwork: Using Microsoft SharePoint Technologies to Collaborate, Innovate, and Drive Business in New Ways by Michael Sampson. This book is just about to publish and covers effective collaboration across networks.

Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire by Cliff Atkinson. This bestseller teaches you how to give an effective oral presentation.  

Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to Get Organized and Stay Organized by Sally McGhee. Another bestseller which teaches you how to manage the flow of information and how to effectively communicate.

Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007: Data Analysis and Business Modeling by Wayne Winston. Wayne teaches both business professionals and MBAs how to analyze business information with Excel. This is his textbook for that class.

In the Trenches with Microsoft Office Project 2007 by Elaine Marmel. This book won't be out for a few more months but many of the skills including problem-solving and collaboration will be covered.

Oh, and speaking of agility and adaptability in the new world of work... I was reorged on Friday and so will be meeting with my new boss and  team on Monday.

Following on to yesterday's post, here is a good article from the NY Times about Overfeeding on Information by Alex Williams.

And thank you to Mike Torres who sent me a link to another newsource--memeorandum.

My news reading habits have changed over time. While we still have the Seattle Times delivered on the weekends, but I do most of my news gathering online. I have three official newspaper/internet hybrid sources

• The Huffington Post.  It has become my main source of news and at some point I began checking headlines several times a day. I no longer try to keep up with a long list of RSS feeds because the Huff Post fill most of my news needs. Now I know it has a "little" bit of a left leaning bent and the instructor of my college critical thinking course would tell me to balance it out with a more "right" leaning rag. I will, I will.
• Crosscut. Crosscut focuses on news in the Northwest--both Seattle, Portland and the greater region. Like the Huff, it is a blend of new content and links to other news sources. 
• NY Times Sunday Edition (Kindle Edition). I just bought an Amazon Kindle. Love it! More posts on that to follow. Before I bought the Kindle I was waking up early Sunday morning before my family so I could go to the store and get my Sunday times for $5. Now, I can just download it for $.75 an issue. I miss the ads and the photos, but not enough to go back.

The rest of the news I get from links from these sites or links from friends.

Very cool link sent to me via VSL.

Every day a different map from National Geographic to explore.

Okay, what is up Cole Haan? I feel like you are starting to stalk me. It started with a beautiful 4/c ad for penny loafers in NY Times style magazine a few weeks ago. Ever since then, it seems I can't get away from you on the Internet. There you are on the Map of the Day. There you were yesterday on the top of my blog banner. There you were the other day on a page off of the MSN home page. I've seen you on Huffington Post. Anywhere I go, there you are.

Well, job well done. Kudos to whomever is running your internet and print ad campaigns. I bought those darn red patent leather penny loafers with the Nike air support. I never spend that much on shoes, but I was at the U-Village and passed your store and was immediately sucked in and next thing I know I'm walking out with a Cole Haan bag under my arm.

But no matter how much you try, I am NOT buying one of your dynamic optical weave bags. No matter how much it reminds me of bargello patterns which I love. I just can't do it. I could buy a computer for the cost of one of these bags. I'm just going to have to stay far away from U Village for the time being.